maybe.. as far as i know its always been that way.

We can charge more than apple, but that instantly prices us out of the market. The only way we can get people to choose us over the apple store or an apple shop is the extra support we offer. We go the extra mile to look after our customers so most of them come back time and time again.

What have you looked at so far Chris? Hopefully we might be able to narrow the field a little for you.

Steve

Hi Steve

A bit more looking around has revealed a few possibles. The screen dimension for image height with a 22" TFT works out about half an inch smaller than my existing monitor, so workable.

I am loathe to spend hundreds on a 24" screen. I saw a slightly smaller Apple screen and the lag on video was noticeable. At the moment, top of my very short list of 1 is the Samsung Syncmaster 226BW:

Samsung For Business | Products | Professional Displays | SM206bw 226bw

It will cost around half what my CRT did over 5 years ago and will hopefully tide me over until manufacturers sort something decent out or maybe I can get my 1200 repaired.

EDIT: Now need a DVI card to drive it properly. Recommendations for one without a fan?

Chris

gigabyte have a passive cooled one i think..

yep the GV-NX86T256D is a nvidia 8600 GT with a passive cooler.. PC Pro reckon its

gigabyte have a passive cooled one i think..

yep the GV-NX86T256D is a nvidia 8600 GT with a passive cooler.. PC Pro reckon its

pussy, you should have bought one of these!!

::: Zalman :::

pussy, you should have bought one of these!!

::: Zalman :::

It is a possibility next time I do a build, but I may well make my own case next time anyway. There are plenty of very quiet fans on the market. My current machine is a little quieter than a hovercraft, so these subtle improvements will make a big difference I hope.

Chris

Just a little update.

I bought a Samsung Syncmaster 226BW (22" widescreen TFT with 2ms response time and 1680 x 1050 pixels) and an MSI Nvidiea 7600GS 512MB dual link DVI graphics card. I have mixed feelings about the new kit.

On the plus side, text on screen with the DVI card is excellent. Due to dabs sending me the wrong card, I started off using the monitor with my old Radeon 7000VE card. This looked superficially OK but the text suffered aliasing.

Colours were easy to set up for a near enough wysiwyg. Illumination is even for a TFT, but you do have to sit very specifically in front of the monitor if one is to avoid "false shading" on images. For general photo viewing, it is OK.

The widescreen format has the advantage of being able to put your photoshop or autocad toolbars down the right hand edge. One can also make side by side comparisons of photos more easily and have two word docs open to view and work together.

Now the downsides.

For photo work, it is difficult to tell how sharp an image will be, so one needs to zoom in a sharpen so see what is happening.

Moving images. Film looks speckly, particularly on skin where the faces of characters seem to shimmer. This is much less so than any other TFT I have seen, but none the less, watching a DVD on this monitor is very inferior to watching it on the old one. Scrolling google earth is another area where the old monitor and card rolled the image seamlessly across the screen as fast or slow as you liked. We now have some shimmering and stepping.

For CAD use, the line thicknesses are less obviously differentiated than with the old one, but I would find it acceptable.

All up then, probably one of the very best TFT monitors available, but in many ways very inferior to what it replaces. Anyone know where I can get a 22" CRT professionally repaired?

Chris

Plenty under Google and "crt repairs" but these look promising

Repairs and Refurbishment - FDT - Future Display Technology Ltd

Depends on whats wrong with it, your local (dieing breed) TC repair place might be able to handle it. I doubt theres many old school computer engineer companies left around, I used to work (many years ago) for a computer consultancy where we did actual component level repairs including to CRT's, but these days most local computer companies are of the reinstall windows or repalce the board variety.

I love my CRT's for high resolution gaming, have yet to see a LCD panel to compare :(. I've got a sony19" at work great for word processing but really doesnt make games look good.

Depends on whats wrong with it, your local (dieing breed) TC repair place might be able to handle it. I doubt theres many old school computer engineer companies left around, I used to work (many years ago) for a computer consultancy where we did actual component level repairs including to CRT's, but these days most local computer companies are of the reinstall windows or repalce the board variety.

I love my CRT's for high resolution gaming, have yet to see a LCD panel to compare :(. I've got a sony19" at work great for word processing but really doesnt make games look good.

Because its not economical to repair computers that way!! Why spend hours diagnosing a faulty component and then micro soldering a new one in place when you can buy a new board for such little money?